Tongue rolling up to the roof of his mouth, eyes fixed, his head beginning to shake in disbelief—beautiful. He'll never doubt her ability to plan a date ever again. The soft pink dress and her hair swept up into a tail pale in comparison to the blushing, excited...and maybe just a touch lovestruck expression on her face. Dressed up for him. Excited that he's come.
"You look stunning, Swan."
"You...look..."
"I know," he teases, grinning at how quickly she gets over her embarrassment with herself. He doesn't want to take his eyes off her, but the old habit of taking in all his surroundings makes no exceptions tonight, he realizes, David, Snow, and Elsa in the corner of his peripheral vision. All still, just watching. "Now that I'm settling into this world, I finally thought it was time to dress the part." Part of him laughs. If they find his clothes striking, just wait. Holding out a rose he bought for her, he waits.
"Wow, you really went all out," she sighs, not tearing her gaze from him in the slightest.
"Uh, Emma?" her mother prompts her. Blinking out of a haze, her hand still on the stem, there's a comical, if silent, pause.
"Is that...?"
"Mine? Yeah. The Dark One kindly restored what he once took from me," he says, holding it up now that her grip on the stem's grown firmer. They'll ask why, he knows. Anyone with half a mind would, but he's a man of his word, his silence bought. "It seems he has indeed changed his ways."
"So...what do I call you now, Captain Hand?" she snarks, and, if he's to be honest with himself, he prefers this underwhelmed reaction, unsure precisely why. It isn't that she's not bombarding him with questions or isn't immediately asking to touch it. No, it's...it's not a significant change to her, and he had no idea until just now how much he likes that.
"'Killian' will do," he responds with a smile.
"Okay, Killian, we should get out of here before David decides to give you his overprotective-dad speech."
That's enough to grant the onlookers more attention, he thinks. It takes little time to meet the cold, not-quite-murderous look he knows has been waiting for him since the moment he'd knocked on the door. If he were a more sporting man, he'd play the part, straighten his posture even more and choke out a few "sirs" here and there, but he has a feeling it will take only a few more instances of parceling out buoying words to give David some faith.
"Well, you can spare yourself the trouble, mate. I assure you, your daughter couldn't be in better hands."
"That's exactly what worries me, especially now that you have two of them," David snaps back.
"I can take of myself," Swan says quickly, her steps to the door deliberately trying not to look rushed.
"You sure you don't want me to drive?" he calls to her.
"Goodbye," she sings. His hand on the small of her back, they move out onto the stairwell, faces mirroring each other in amusement. Needless to say, she waits until the door is completely closed before she even opens her mouth. "So two questions—where'd you get your new duds and where am I driving us?"
"Where's the fun in that? We aren't even outside yet."
"Yeah, yeah, I guess you could just blindfold me and tell me to steer in certain directions. Of course, that wouldn't take into account speed limits and whether or not I ram the car in front of us or I overcompensate and go so slow we get rear-ended..." she trails off, giving him a pointed, but not really stern, look.
"Fair enough. It's on the other side of town, and there is a clothing store in town, on the same street as Granny's."
"I'm surprised you didn't have Leroy or anyone dead-set on coming with us," she snorts as they step back outside, her yellow car waiting for them alongside the walkway.
"I may have not alerted certain parties to my plans for the evening," he says, stepping around to open her door for her. Ignoring her surprised reaction to the gesture, as if no one's ever done that for her before, he adds, "The dwarfs can be very insistent when it comes to socializing."
"That's the nice way to say it." Starting the car, she turns the wheel and angles the car backward until they're ready to join in the traffic on the street. "Although I guess if you had said it was with me Happy might have backed off."
"Why do you say that?" He isn't even sure which one Happy is.
"Something about all of us being gone in Neverland saving my son while he's shooting his mouth off about how peaceful it is when we're not around sort of lends itself to that conclusion, don't you think?"
"Aye, that would do it," he sighs, gazing out the windshield. After Neverland, when Henry was safe, was supposed to be when he started showing her a good time, giving her the fun she deserved. Leaning back into his seat, he watches her drive, shaking his head at how it had taken over a year.
Swallowing, he inspects the shrubberies with the white lights strung over them everyone seems so fond of here for decoration. A vine-covered stone facade with a deep-set wooden door awaits them, a faint piano tune not meant to deflect attention from anything playing from somewhere.
Their host must be afraid to speak, an addled-looking man with a broad, red-faced smile grabbing menus and bustling into another room with only a kindly nod to greet them. Breathe, he tells himself. Don't nitpick. Every other second he tries to read Swan's face as it takes in the new surroundings, deciding the collected, relaxed expression indicates satisfaction. But he'll ask just to make sure she hadn't had a run-in with some notable magical antagonist here.
"Well, Swan, what do you think?"
"I like that it's not Granny's," she says. About to tease her about her low standards, he instead shuffles in front of her and taps their mute host as a sign that he will be the one pulling the chair out for her, too mindful of how unexpected she'd found just opening a door for her.
"I've only seen you go on one date, and that was with a flying monkey. Thought I had to top that," he says, taking off his jacket.
"He set the bar pretty high. He proposed that night," she warns. It's not nearly as much a deterrent as she thinks it is.
"He also tried to kill you," he counters.
"Right. There's that," she concedes, unfolding her napkin and setting it on her lap as he finally slips his jacket over the back of the chair and sits. She looks up with her back bone-straight and her hands folded together in front with her fingers interlocking...then smoothing out the napkin...then back to the table flipping over each other in some slow-paced fight as to which will be on top. It's not a bloody interview, he thinks, clearing his throat. Everything until they'd sat down had been so effortless; they can't start trying too hard now.
"Shall I order us some drinks?" he offers.
"Not tonight."
"Why, love? You a bit worried you'll find me even more irresistible after a few libations?" Waggling an eyebrow at her until she smiles, rather apologetically, he notes, and begins mentioning the Snow Queen. He nods. He should have expected Swan to err on the side of caution.
"You still think her being here has something to do with you."
"I don't think it. I know it! There was a puddle next to my car this afternoon!"
Apparently even puddles now impede the two of them.
"A puddle," he repeats. "What does that prove?" It comes out harsher than he meant. Her jaw sets, but it's the way her mouth falls open, searching for words in such a deflated manner, that causes him to inhale and reach forward for both her hands.
"Look, Swan, I didn't bring you here to worry about the Snow Queen. I brought you here to show you a good time." He didn't mean to be discouraging and he'll devote every second of the next day to whatever investigation she wants to conduct, for it's too clear she does want to investigate this woman, but is it that selfish to let it go for a night? Watching helplessly while her father hoisted her drenched, motionless body onto the rain-soaked deck felt like lifetimes ago, but the feeling, the gnawing feeling that both of them are putting their lives on hold when they should be basking in every quiet reprieve they get before something disastrous happens remains fresh. He doesn't move until she smiles again, giving him that coy one he likes so much that tells him she's fully at ease. Smiling back, he signals to the man behind the bar over at the end of the room.
"Wine?"
"Sounds great," she says. "This place definitely doesn't have a rum and Coke vibe."
Their waiter approaches them with a tray with wine glasses and a bread basket atop it, and he just realizes he hasn't even skimmed the menu. He doesn't mind the slow pace; rather, it's easier to see his point that they need to make sure life slows down here and there for them.
At once, the waiter slams into the edge of the table, ricocheting backward onto the floor, bread flying everywhere, an entire glass' worth of wine spilling right into Emma's lap. He lifts himself out of his seat enough to find not the waiter excusing himself for tripping or anything harmless, but some imbecile making a show of hoisting the man up and dusting him off.
"Really?" Emma asks herself, her arms up, staring at her dress and starting to dab it with the napkin as the idiot rather boisterously inquires about the waiter's well-being. He'd done it on purpose, and he hadn't done it to slight the waiter. The whole petty gesture had been directed at her. He grabs onto the man's shirt before he can take off.
"Apologize to the lady, mate," he orders.
"Killian. Look, it's okay."
It should be okay. It shouldn't be that his knuckles turn white, that his grip is so tight his fist shakes. He'd been thinking...what had he been thinking? You know how to behave, he hears a little voice in him say, close enough to Liam's voice it immediately makes him let go. Tonight was no night for anyone to bring out the worst in him.
The worst in him... No, no, you will not let the crocodile's words get to you, he warns himself. It's what he wants. Bloody coward probably sent the man over here for this very reason, to rile you up. To make you look bad. To be that selfish pirate once more.
But what if he hadn't? He'd acted so instinctively, had been so ready to beat the man to a pulp without a second thought. There hadn't been time to make a choice, good or bad.
There would have been time if you weren't always so inclined to do the wrong thing...
"Killian? Hey, look." The hand, the new hand, he'd been burning a hole into suddenly has hers in it, and a surge of warmth flows through him as he feels her squeeze it. "It's okay. It was just a glass of wine." It wiggles in his until their fingers are interlocked, like the other night, only it's the new hand. From him, and for a moment he wonders if it really is part of him or not.
"Sorry, love. I don't know what got into me."
"Trust me, you're not the only one who'd like to punch that guy's lights out," she says. Her tone sounds light, but her hand hasn't released his. "Guy broke into the ice cream shop yesterday like he was cooperating with Dav—Dad and me, and then, like an idiot, I didn't think he'd run off."
He doesn't say anything, just tries to blink his way back into the moment. Her other arm reaches around and strokes the top of his hand.
"He's not worth it, letting him get into your head."
"I'm sorry." He doesn't know what else to say. He knows she doesn't mean the man that is indeed worming his way into his head...
"Come on, don't be sorry," she says with a gentle laugh and stands back up for a second. "See? Not even a stain. Waiter's okay, bread's still fresh." She picks up one of the spilled slices from the table. "Might as well act like it never happened."
She's right. Swallowing, he takes his napkin after they break apart and wipes drops of wine off his menu and then off his trousers. He spies a dark spot over the square bulge from his pocket and sets it on the table. If some thief ruined his phone with Emma and Henry's numbers in it...
"Can I show you something on that?" she asks after a beat, her eyes still too intent on him to be relaxed. With a hesitant smile, she scrapes her chair along the floor until she's scooted beside him. It all feels like it's moving slower than it is—the way her shoulder brushes his as she picks up his phone. It takes only the push of a few buttons before she holds it out in front of her and leans into him.
"Smile," she murmurs, the side of her head next to his.
Unsure of what to expect, he hears the slightest clicking sound from the phone. It's them. Them. Their likenesses frozen onto the screen. Together. He blinks at it as she pushes one selection after another. The portrait vanishes from view, but he has a feeling it's not completely gone.
"Here." She hands it back to him, the screen with her name and number on it pulled up. "Now when you get a call from me or the other way around, that's the picture that'll pop up."
Holding the phone in his hand and then switching it over to the other one, he feels the corners of his mouth tug a smile forward. Them. Watching her from the corner of his eye, he hits the green button to call her and, sure enough, the picture appears.
"Thank you."
But Emma's backing her chair out from the table, her ponytail swishing from side to side as she scans the floor around her.
"Where's my rose?"
"That thief didn't soil it when he collided into everything, did he?" He wouldn't put it past him, sleepy-eyed little twerp. It's really not that daunting a task to go get another one, he reminds himself as his fists clench. His temper shouldn't be flaring up at the mental image of the man, but it does. He drags his fingertips across the tablecloth, tracing the edge of a red and black-checked column to let it sink in—he tells his hands what to do, not the other way around. Granted, he's no expert on the particular triggers and nerves in a brain, but somewhere in his had the notion to move his fingers, so they move. He lifts them one at the time, drumming the table, just as he told them to do.
"You said he took off from the ice cream shop?" he blurts out.
"Yeah, he...I thought we weren't going to talk shop," she says, a touch flirtatiously, he notes, and his eyebrow instinctively lifts up. Mirroring the minuscule tilting of her head, he leans back in his chair, allowing himself a sigh when she spots her flower and sweeps it up off the floor.
They slip into conversation easier than choosing their entrees, twice asking the waiter to give them a few more minutes, Swan laughing about the newest expression her infant brother's made, how she and her father have taken advantage of Snow's new-mother fussiness via a sort of contest as to who can rile her up first.
Food finally finds its way to them, Swan picking and prodding at hers with her fork, looking extra inquisitive.
"Burned? We can send it back."
"No, just wanted to take a look at it. I've..." She rolls her eyes at herself. "I've never ordered...what was it...Shrimp Carbonara before. Thought I'd even the playing field since you hadn't had any of this stuff before, either, so..."
Some things cross realms, the appropriate amount for a tip one of them. He'd wondered if they would see the thief after they'd gone outside, but, alas, if there is anything a thief knows how to do, it's hide from the law. Swan slows her pace on the walk back to her car, drooping her head down to look at her rose again, her fingers curling over the top to play with the petals. Watching her, he frowns at her almost inaudible sigh of disappointment once the rounded yellow roof comes into sight. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he juts out an elbow and twists his torso until it's facing her.
"Care to go on a walk?" he asks, suddenly aware his heel is bouncing.
"Sure," she says, relieved and, rather coyly, taking his arm.
This side of town isn't as familiar to him as other parts and they soon find themselves walking down a wide, quiet street with only houses and parked cars to meet them. A few streetlights and smaller porch lights give off a soft white, almost blue lighting to everything. Darker than the main street, assuredly, but it still doesn't feel as private as out in open sea, no lights for miles except for an endless array of stars.
"Ships must get lost all the time here," he wonders out loud, as they are well past the point of either's musings appearing foolish. "Can't even see the sky when we're in a residential district."
"That's not true. There's supposed to be a North Star, right? Brightest star we can see?" She throws her chin up into the air, peering into the opaque blackness above them. Squinting, she blinks a few times.
"No luck then?" he teases, watching her place her hands on her hips and straighten her back to be able to search farther.
"Well, you can't rush me, but it's like the one thing I retained from eighth grade astronomy..."
"And I'm sure if this world wasn't so fond of artificial light, you'd be able to find it just fine, love, but..." he trails off, seeing she's spinning in a slow circle, her gaze shifted to the street surrounding them. With a devilish smirk that regrettably doesn't come out to play nearly often enough, she closes her eyes and holds out her hand, flexing her fingers apart. As they spread, the streetlights closest to them go out, then the next set, and then the next and the next.
"Just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to start a traffic collision first," she pants, the magic emitting from her leaving her a bit winded. Undeterred, she continues her search...and he finds it right away. "That it?"
"Aye. Well done." Well done, indeed, as no one's even come out of their house in complete puzzlement as to what's happened to the outdoor lights. Well, the two of them can't just stand around in the dark and leave it at that. "Do you remember them telling you in 'eighth grade' it's the tail of the little bear?"
"The what?" she asks, blushing at his sudden grin as he sweeps up behind her and, with both hands, tilts her chin gently back up to the sky until her temple is touching his, until where she looks is where he looks.
"There's the North Star, and you follow that trail of stars down and see how it leads to a boxy shape? That's the little bear, and that star directly below that..." Their heads both dip down. "That's almost the tip of the tail of Draco, the dragon."
"These things really shouldn't have the same names in both worlds," she comments, skimming what he assumes is the tail judging by the way the side of her face brushes his...and leans into it. "Show me another one," she says after a beat.
"Well, below the tail is the big bear, not all that interesting a one," he says, nodding down at it like an old acquaintance one didn't really want to see. "So if you continue up the tail, see how it curves? It curves away from Cepheus, the whale..." He makes sure she sees the elongated pentagon someone decided some ancient time ago was a whale. "Then go back to the dragon's tail till it ends at the head. Just above that," he says, finding her smile all too contagious. "Is Cygnus, the swan." Taking her hand, he holds up their arms and traces the crossed lines in the sky, sweeping over the imaginary wings.
It's, on the surface, nothing more than a peck on his cheek, but Killian closes his eyes, has to catch his breath. It's what he's wanted for so long now, for the two of them to take their time together, to have some fun and just enjoy...and he's about to tell her he loves her. Not yet, not yet, not yet—just enjoy.
Swan seems to share the sentiment, backing away from him but keeping her hand on his arm as her other repeats the motion it did earlier, her spreading fingers bringing the light back into the neighborhood.
"What's it like to have magic?" She gives him a surprised look. "I didn't mean to pry."
"No, no, it's not prying. It's more that it's hard to describe. I used to get so sick of all the fantasy movies showing someone learning magic and the teacher that knows it all already just stands there going, 'Concentrate,' but you really have to! It's, it's...well, it's emotional because you really have to think about why you want something to happen. It's not enough to just want to do it. You have to put all your thoughts into what it means. And as if that wasn't hard enough, you have to visualize what you're doing at the same time. You have to picture things more vividly than you ever have before in your life, so you're putting your whole brain, no, your whole freaking soul into not only the present, but also in the future and they have to synch up and if you're in a battle or some stupid witch from another land is about to rip your mom's heart out, you've got to do it on the spot..." She pauses to take a breath and her blushing brings to light glowing goosebumps below her collarbone. He shrugs out of his jacket and wraps it over her.
"It sounds like it could be overwhelming," he says, offering his arm again for them to walk back to the car.
"Not as much as my rant," she says, rolling her eyes at herself.
"But you're glad you have it."
"It comes in handy, anyway. If I didn't, I would have lost my mom to Cora, Henry to Zelena...you to some Shadow." Sighing, she tucks a loose strand of her hair back into her ponytail and shoots him a smile. "It's not when I plan on using it that's nerve-wracking, though. It's when I do something I didn't plan on. That's probably hard to understand."
"I'm trying to," he says, hoping she doesn't take it as something impossible to understand. He tries not to be taken aback when she shrugs.
"Well, if anyone would get it, it would be you." He watches her, waiting for her to elaborate as she bends over and retrieves her car key from her shoe. He swears his eyebrow is approaching his hairline, but he waits until she gives him her own puzzled look.
"I think you have innate magic confused with charisma."
"Not magic," Swan says, rolling her eyes at him. "But all those years being something you weren't, just now getting used to being someone people depend on and that they're okay with it...you get that." Her head snaps back up after unlocking her door. "Right?"
He hopes so, he thinks, glancing down at his hands.
The silence would be a comfortable one, save for the fact it brings his mind back to the incident with the thief. Over three hundred years of existing...he knows now not to call it "living"...has taught him patience, if nothing else. It had all happened too quickly for him to think, and before he'd known it, he'd been boiling with rage.
Rumpelstiltskin has not changed and therefore would not bother to warn you if it was cursed.
Of course, that would mean he had cursed it himself.
Or he knows you well enough to drive you mad with just wondering if it's cursed...which is a hint that maybe you should stop worrying, he tells himself with a voice that sounds suspiciously like Swan's.
He just can't.
"Hey. Tiger. You have to come up, can't spend the night in my car."
Shaken yet again from his contemplating, he throws himself out of the seat and rushes around the front of the car to open the door for her again. Still adorned with his jacket, she shoots him a crooked smirk and starts for the apartment without him, nigh-gliding, swaying, in such a manner that would demand he follow whether she said so with words or not. In fact, she doesn't say anything at all until they are inside and up to the square, not-private-enough space just outside her door.
"Well, not bad. You actually managed to make me forget that Storybrooke was under siege from an evil Snow Queen," she says, cocking her head and waiting.
"I was worried that our run-in with that thief might have cast a pall. I apologize for overreacting."
Her chest heaves as she rakes her hand down his arm until her fingers slide through his, the softest intake of air from her the only thing registering with him.
"Hey, it's okay," she murmurs, a bemused look coming over her. "You want to come in and have coffee with...my parents, a newborn, and a human ice maker?"
He can snap out of this funk if she laughs just a little more, her face flushed and eyes bright. And their hands are joined still.
"I really need to get my own place," she adds under her breath.
"I suppose we'll just have to wait until next time," he says, smiling and feeling a bubble of nervous laughter filling up this throat. Gods, he almost salivates at what could await him the next time, if she indeed found a place of her own.
"Next time? I don't remember asking," she teases.
"That's because it's my turn." His breath hitches, a sensory overload threatening to reduce him to nothing more than a randy, eye-popping lad. "Will you go out with me again?"
He remembers that look. He didn't know what it meant the first time he'd seen it, in Neverland when she was drinking him in with her eyes right before she tugged him to her and changed everything with just a touch of her wonderfully intoxicating lips. He knows what it means now and leans into her at the same time she leans into him. It's a more unhurried kiss than that time, but just as ferocious in its own way, robbing him of breath and yet filling him up. He can adore her now properly, wrapping his arms around her so his hands can press into her back.
So close, so close he can only pull her closer. Taking his time, his left hand strokes against the leather on her back up to the back of her neck, lost in the baby curls too short to stay up in her ponytail. He welcomes the loss of control he feels, only needing to break from her long enough to draw in more air.
The hand is roaming more than it should. The control he had just been so willing to shove to the side now sinks its claws into him. Thieves didn't deserve the abrupt, unexplained loss of temper before; therefore Swan certainly doesn't. Opening his eyes, he looks past her blissful face at the palm that he regards with as much familiarity as passing a stranger on the street. Turning around, she slips out of his jacket and, as much as she might have pointed out continuing their time together tonight is impossible, it's a rather come-hither smile she's giving him.
"Goodnight," she says. He responds, watching silently as she faces him only to close the door behind her. She's holding her breath.
A/N: Pure fluff is not something I'm used to writing, but we all know the mood whiplash is going to kick in big time after this, and this date is a big deal for them, so I tried to do it justice. My only regret is that I didn't get to write what was happening in the apartment right before, because Snow's little "here we go" cracks me up. The chapter title is from the Christina Perri song, "The Words." Coming up? I wasn't kidding around when I said the fun stops (for now).
